THE teenage driver who killed a ten-year-old boy in a hit-and-run crash in York has been locked up for two and a half years.

John Patrick Smith, 18, had previously admitted driving the van that hit Sean Hamilton in Holgate Road a year ago this weekend.

At York Crown Court yesterday Judge Stephen Ashurst told him: “You were driving far too fast – too fast to allow young Sean to react and too fast to give yourself any chance of avoiding him.”

Smith, of Carlton Caravan Site, Carlton, near Selby, bowed his head so low in the dock he was barely visible. He choked back sobs as details of the crash were read out.

Sean was on the way to his home in Linnet Way, Foxwood, York, after a visit to the cinema, when the accident happened, at 8.20pm on October 3 last year.

The court heard Smith was driving the Ford transit van to drop his friend and his cousin off to “see some girls”.

Smith, who had passed his driving test only six months earlier, was driving at 47mph in the 30mph zone and clipped Sean with the side of the van before driving over him.

He then smashed into another car further along the road before he and two passengers climbed out of the van and ran off.

Sean’s sister, Stephanie, 12, who was with Sean when the accident happened, recalled hearing someone shout “leg it” and said she saw Smith look at her younger brother before running off.

Taryn Turner, for Smith, said he left the scene in “blind panic”, not in a “callous act”.

But Judge Ashurst said: “Stephanie Hamilton and her friends instinctively went to do what they could to help Sean, as did other members of the public. In stark contrast, however, your instinct was self preservation. Rather than stop to help, both you and your two passengers simply abandoned your van and ran off into the night.”

Sean, a pupil at Our Lady’s RC Primary School, was treated by paramedics at the scene, but died at York Hospital at 9.55pm, with his family by his side.

Smith handed himself in the following morning at Fulford Road Police Station.

Shaun Dodd, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said Smith originally claimed he was driving at 32mph and described the incident as a “pure accident”. He later admitted the charge of death by careless driving, and separate charges of failing to stop and failing to report the collision.

As part of their investigation, police recreated the conditions of the collision, travelling at different speeds. The court heard that, when travelling between 45 and 50mph, officers felt “distinctly uncomfortable” negotiating the stretch of road.

Ms Turner said Smith was now taking anti-depressants. She said: “The depth of this young man’s remorse is evident. He desperately empathises with the family that have lost their child.”

Judge Ashurst said the Hamilton family had been left heartbroken and said a victim statement by Sean’s father, Ronnie, made for “poignant reading”.

He told Smith: “I do not doubt you have been affected emotionally nor do I believe your tearful appearance is just for show. You now accept you created this distressing loss for the Hamilton family and part of your distress is the realisation that you will have to live with this event indefinitely.”

Smith was given a 30-month immediate sentence in a young offenders’ institution for causing death by careless driving. He received a 12-month sentence for failing to stop and another 12-month sentence for failing to report an accident, both to run concurrently.

He was also given a five-year driving ban. At its end he will need to pass an extended test before driving again.